Mayweather: A Great Boxer But Despicable Human Being
By Ken Reed
The big fight approaches. “Bring it on!” yell sports fans. Pay-per-view execs clamor on and on about this “great event” and the record riches that the Floyd Mayweather – Manny Pacquiao fight will bring.
But nobody seems to want to address the fact that Mayweather is a serial abuser of women who doesn’t deserve our attention. This is a guy who should be in jail not on boxing’s biggest stage in a few days.
For all the people that make money off Mayweather, it’s business as usual, Profit-At-All-Costs (PAAC). For sports fans in general and boxing fans in particular, it’s Entertainment-At-All-Costs (EAAC).
Are we that hard up as a society for entertainment that we ignore what Mayweather the person does because Mayweather the boxer is so talented?
Five times juries have convicted Mayweather of some type of domestic violence. He’s been convicted of punching the mother of one of his children in the face with his fist, among a long list of ugly actions against women. Yet, there have been no sanctions from boxing’s governing bodies.
Ray Rice is a choir boy compared to this bum.
In a country in which sexual assault has reached epidemic proportions on our college campuses, millions of Americans will pay $98 and tune into Mayweather’s latest multi-million dollar fight.
Mayweather likely will be wearing his mouthguard made out of $100 bills in the ring. Clearly, bad decisions have no consequences for this bum.
The whole situation is a slap in the face to the thousands of hard-working people who are fighting the domestic abuse problem in this country.
Boxing has long been a sleazy, unethical sport. But placing a poor excuse of a man like Floyd Mayweather on a pedestal, as this fight does, is a low point in the fight game’s history.
It’s a frustrating situation, but at the very least we can boycott this fight, its promoters, and its advertisers. We can take a stand and not step into this slimy cesspool.
— Ken Reed, Sports Policy Director, League of Fans
Sports Forum Podcast
Episode #28 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: A Chat With Mano Watsa, a Leading Basketball and Life Educator – Watsa is President of PGC Basketball, the largest education basketball camp in the world, with over 150 camps in 30+ U.S. states and Canada. We discuss problems in youth sports today, including single sport specialization, the growing gap between the “haves” and “have-nots,” the high drop-out rate in competitive sports, and the growing mental health challenges young athletes are dealing with today.
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Episode #27 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: Kids’ Sports: How We Can Take Back the Game and Restore Quality Family Time In the Process – Linda Flanagan is author of “Take Back the Game: How Money and Mania Are Ruining Kids’ Sports and Why It Matters.” We discuss how commercialized and professionalized youth sports are hurting kids and their families.
Episode #26 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: How Can We Fix Youth Sports? – John O’Sullivan is Founder and CEO of Changing the Game Project and author of “Changing the Game: The Parents Guide to Raising Happy, High Performing Athletes and Giving Youth Sports Back to Our Kids.”
Episode #25 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: Physical Education Should Be a Critical Component of K-12 School Design – Michael Horn is co-founder of the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation.
Episode #24 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: Mental Health and Athletes: Ending the Stigma – Nathan Braaten and Taylor Ricci are the founders of Dam Worth It, a non-profit created to end the stigma around mental health at colleges and universities through sport, storytelling, and community creation.
Episode #23 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: Olympian Benita Fitzgerald Mosley Talks Title IX, Youth Sports and the Olympics.
Media
"How We Can Save Sports" author Ken Reed appears on Fox & Friends to explain how there's "too much adult in youth sports."
Ken Reed appears on Mornings with Gail from KFKA Radio in Colorado to discuss bad parenting in youth athletics.
“Should College Athletes Be Paid?” Ken Reed on The Morning Show from Wisconsin Public Radio
Ken Reed appears on KGNU Community Radio in Colorado (at 02:30) to discuss equality in sports and Title IX.
Ken Reed appears on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour (at 38:35) to discuss his book The Sports Reformers: Working to Make the World of Sports a Better Place, and to talk about some current sports issues.
- League of Fans Sports Policy Director Ken Reed quoted in Washington Post column titled "What happened to P.E.? It’s losing ground in our push for academic improvement," by Jay Mathews
League of Fans is a sports reform project founded by Ralph Nader to fight for the higher principles of justice, fair play, equal opportunity and civil rights in sports; and to encourage safety and civic responsibility in sports industry and culture.
Vanderbilt Sport & Society - On The Ball with Andrew Maraniss with guest Ken Reed, Sports Policy Director for League of Fans and author of How We Can Save Sports: A Game Plan
Sports & Torts – Ken Reed, Sports Policy Director, League of Fans – at the American Museum of Tort Law
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